In the new issue of Regulation, economist Pierre Lemieux argues that the recent oil price decline is at least partly the result of increased supply from the extraction of shale oil. The increased supply allows the economy to produce more goods, which benefits some people, if not all of them. Thus, contrary to some commentary in the press, cheaper oil prices cannot harm the economy as a whole.

Two long wars, chronic deficits, the financial crisis, the costly drug war, the growth of executive power under Presidents Bush and Obama, and the revelations about NSA abuses, have given rise to a growing libertarian movement in our country – with a greater focus on individual liberty and less government power. David Boaz’s newly released The Libertarian Mind is a comprehensive guide to the history, philosophy, and growth of the libertarian movement, with incisive analyses of today’s most pressing issues and policies.

“Gone wrong” means weak in theory, threatening to liberty, and not helpful to law enforcement:

If these “intelligence” reports described recent crimes and the people who perpetrated them, there would be little problem from a civil rights perspective, and it could actually be helpful to the average police officer. Instead, they have followed a “radicalization” theory popularized by the NYPD (PDF). That theory postulates that there is a “path” to terrorism that includes the adoption of certain beliefs, and political, religious, or social activism is viewed as another step toward violence. Actual empirical studies of terrorism conducted in the Netherlands and Britain refute this theory, but the idea that hard-to-find terrorists can be caught by spying on easy-to-find activists appears too hard to resist to U.S. law enforcement.

The takeaway: “Threat reports that focus on ideology instead of criminal activity are threatening to civil liberties and a wholly ineffective use of federal security resources.”

Fox News already debunked the claim that 90% of the guns involved in Mexico’s drug war come from the United States. Facts aside, the press onslaught continues in a new push for gun control.

The fact is that out of 29,000 firearms picked up in Mexico over the last two-year period for which data is available, 5,114 of the 6,000 traced guns came from the United States. While that is 90% of traced guns, it means that only 17% of recovered guns come from the United States civilian market.

Where did the rest come from? A number of places. To begin with, over 150,000 Mexican soldiers have deserted in the last six years for the better pay and benefits of cartel life, some taking their issued M-16 rifles with them.

Surprisingly, a significant number of the arms are coming to the cartels via legitimate transactions. They are produced and exported legally every year, regulated by the State Department as Direct Commercial Sales. FY 2007 figures for the full exports are available here, and State’s report on end-use is available here, alleging widespread fraud and use of front companies to funnel the weapons into the black market. (H/T to Narcosphere) This doesn’t even take into account the thousands of weapons floating around Latin America from previous wars of liberation. This Los Angeles Times article also shows how the cartels are getting hand grenades, rocket launchers, and other devices you can’t pick up at your local sporting goods store.

Perhaps this is why law enforcement officials did not ask for new gun laws to combat Mexican drug violence at recent hearings in front of Congress.

Never mind those pesky facts. The story at the New York Times recycles the 90% claim. The associated video is just as bad. Narrator: “The weapons that are arming the drug war in Juarez are illegal to purchase and possess in Mexico.” They’re also illegal in the United States. As the narrator says these words, the Mexican officer is handling an M-16 variant with a barrel less than sixteen inches long. This rifle would be illegal to possess in the United States without prior approval from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (BATFE). As the video mentions the expired “Assault” Weapons Ban, the submachine gun in frame would also be classified as a short-barreled rifle and require BATFE approval. Ditto for many of the rifles shown in the video. The restrictions on barrel length would not apply to weapons exported as Direct Commercial Sales. Law enforcement folks call this a “clue.”

The language of gun control advocates is changing subtly to demonize “military style” weapons. “Military style” weapons is a new and undefined term that means either (1) automatic weapons, short barreled rifles, short barreled shotguns, and destructive devices already heavily regulated by federal law; or (2) a term inclusive of all modern firearms in a back-door attempt to enact a new gun control scheme.

This is not a new tactic. The Violence Policy Center has previously tried to fool people by portraying ordinary rifles as machine guns with the term “assault” weapons: “The weapons’ menacing looks, coupled with the public’s confusion over fully automatic machine guns versus semi-automatic assault weapons-anything that looks like a machine gun is assumed to be a machine gun-can only increase the chance of public support for restrictions on these weapons.”

Making our domestic policies based on the preferences of other countries is unacceptable, especially in an activity protected by the Constitution. One of Canada’s Human Rights Commissioners is on record saying that “[f]reedom of speech is an American concept, so I don’t give it any value.” (Apparently, it makes the folks at the Department of Homeland Security nervous too) In a similar vein, the United Nations says “[w]e especially encourage the debate on the issue of reinstating the 1994 U.S. ban on assault rifles that expired in 2004.”

It’s not theirs to say, and we shouldn’t listen to an argument based on lies. Related posts here and here.

A draft Senate bill to revive the REAL ID Act has been leaked to to the anti-immigrant Center for Immigration Studies, and they find it wanting.

The bill is an attempt to smooth down REAL ID and make the national ID law more palatable. CIS is unhappy because they want a national ID implemented right away.

REAL ID is, of course, failing. Just ten months ago, the Bush Administration’s Secretary of Homeland Security granted waivers to every state in the country - not a single one of them was in compliance by the May, 2008 deadline, and several have statutorily barred themselves from complying.

Legislation to repeal REAL ID in both the House and Senate was introduced in the last Congress, but with an administration and Department of Homeland Security eager to demagogue the issue against a Democratic Congress, that legislation did not move. Repealing REAL ID would not have the same problem in the current Congress.

But since then, Washington’s wheels have been turning. The National Governors Association has turned into an advocate of reviving REAL ID because it hopes that federal dollars will flow behind federal mandates. They won’t, but reviving REAL ID will cement NGA’s role as a beggar for federal dollars in Washington. (Maybe other state legislator groups, as well.)

Everbody in Washington, D.C. salivates over the chance to make “deals” even if that means switching positions on issues of principle like whether the U.S. should have a national ID. We’ll be watching to see which political leaders reverse themselves and support this attempt at a national ID for their love of political dealmaking.

The working name of the REAL ID revival bill is the “PASS ID Act.” It should not be given a pass by opponents of a U.S. national ID and the REAL ID Act.

People who don’t know me well don’t realize I’m not American. I have no accent, am among the most patriotic people you could meet, went to college and law school here, interned for a senator, clerked for a federal judge, worked on a presidential campaign, spent time in Iraq, and speak and write about the U.S. Constitution for a living. I was born in Russia, however, and immigrated to Canada with my parents when I was little. “We took a wrong turn at the St. Lawrence Seaway,” I like to joke.

The upshot is that, much as I’ve wanted to be American since about age eight — when I discovered that the U.S. governing ethos was “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” while Canada’s is “peace, order, and good government” — I am a Canadian citizen. And, because of this country’s perverted immigration system, none of the time I’ve spent in the United States (my entire adult life save a 10-month masters program in London) got me any closer to the unrestricted right to live and work here (a “green card”).

Don’t worry, I’ve always been legal, through a combination of student, training, and professional visas, but those were always tied to the school or employer, hindering the types of professional activities I could engage in hanging a sword of Damocles over my life. If I lost my job — as so many lawyers have, for example, in this economy — I would have to leave the country where about 95% of my personal and professional network is located.

When I came to Cato, the opportunity presented itself to finally be able to petition for a green card. (I’ll spare you the overly technical and exceedingly frustrating details.) Along the way, I even got a certificate saying that the U.S. government — or at least the Department of Homeland Security’s U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service (what used to be the I.N.S.) — considered me an “alien of exceptional ability.” I didn’t let this go to my head; when lawyers and bureaucrats come up with a term of art, it means less in real life than, say, one of you readers emailing me that you liked something I blogged here.

Anyhow, not expecting any action on my green card petition for at least another year (based on the processing times posted at the USCIS website), last night I came home to an unmarked envelope in my mailbox. It was my green card! — complete with a little pamphlet welcoming me to America.

This is quite literally the key to the rest of my life in this wonderful country. Those who know me well know how huge a deal this is for me personally, how long it has taken, and how many arbitrary and capricious obstacles our immigration non-policy places in the way of “skilled workers.” (Three years ago I attracted media attention during the Senate immigration debate with the soundbite, “if this reform goes through, I’m giving up law and taking up gardening.”)

I’ve been very fortunate in the opportunities I’ve had and the people I’ve met — including, in significant part, through the big-tent movement for liberty — and I am eternally grateful that this day has finally arrived. Believe me that I will never take for granted the great privilege that is permanent residence in the United States. My sincere hope is that America remains a beacon of liberty and that shining city on a hill.

I may well blog or write more about this in the future, but for more on my personal story, see, e.g., here, here, and here. More importantly, check out Cato’s excellent immigration work here.

If it was ever in doubt that REAL ID and the push for national ID systems are a project of anti-immigrant groups, this should dispel it.

The Center for Immigration Studies has a page up on its website in which REAL ID lobbyist Janice Kephart trots out videos of Bush administration Department of Homeland Security officials sort of making the case for REAL ID. Or at least for all the different ID programs they had. Or something.

Frankly, it’s not clear what this piece is getting at. The material is rather meandering, and neither the videos nor the text provide a coherent argument for a national ID, much less defeat the arguments against one. (The featured former officials are former, and not involved with the current administration, because voters rejected the fear-mongering of the former DHS and administration in the most recent election.)

What the text does say is that the Obama administration is cool on a national ID because it “gained many votes from those who support mass, illegal and unchecked immigration into the US.” This is inaccurate in many respects. Nobody supports illegal immigration, but many people do recognize that balanced and generous immigration rules would reduce it. This country has a long history of being immigrant friendly and of favoring liberty over things like national ID systems. If those kinds of policies win votes, so be it! It’s nice to see a group like CIS admit that their agenda is politically unpopular.

Whatever the case, if you had any doubt about what motivates national ID advocacy in the country, it’s anti-immigrant groups. Their amateurish interest in terrorism and national security is motivated by their fixation on preventing free movement of people. The great irony is that the Center for Immigration Studies would put native-born American citizens into a national ID system to try to get at their anti-immigrant goals.

With the REAL ID Act floundering in state resistance, DHS officials and government contractors have been pinning their hopes on “enhanced drivers licenses” or EDLs. These are state-issued driver’s licenses that the Department of Homeland Security and State Department have agreed to treat as proof of citizenship for purposes of border crossings.

With the flexibility of doing things by fiat, outside of a statutory process, the bureaucracy had gotten some traction with this ID system – most notable for its use of long-range RFID (radio frequency identification tags) to track people.

But news comes today that the Canadian province of Saskatchewan is scrapping its plans to create EDLs for U.S. border crossings, mostly due to cost.

“I was comfortable in the $25 to $50 range, but when I saw those costs (for an enhanced driver’s licence) go above $50 and nearing the cost of getting a passport, the argument for just having a passport became stronger and stronger and I think logically we’ve made the right decision here,” [Crown Corporations Minister Ken] Cheveldayoff said.

With more vocal opposition to RFID-based tracking in EDLs south of the border (that is, here in the states), the U.S. EDL may run into more than just cost concerns. And there is discomfort brewing with federal agencies cooking up an identity system on their own.

For all its faults, at least REAL ID had a statutory mandate. EDLs could end up being anything bureaucrats want them to be, which could be worse than what Congress put together in REAL ID.